Dear Elders,

We know that you care about us and the future generations but you are currently too tied up to find answers and work towards the immediate needs like- Oh! What can I do to make my job better? How can I get a better raise? How can I make more money? What will be my answers in the next stakeholders meeting? You seem to have lost the connection with the environment that you need to give and hand over to the next generation.

The Future we want must constitute a sustainable just and peaceful world.  You are losing the wisdom to think and connect. You have indulged in convenient living forgetting the rest- like for example you go to the supermarkets and buy loads of grocery in plastic bags which stay forever if not recycled and carelessly tossed they reach our oceans forming Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch and Atlantic.  A simple act of –Saying No to Plastic is needed.  Similarly many more! Today you have to travel great distances to experience a beautiful environment and tomorrow may leave no place for us to travel.

Why can’t you along with us together, strive to keep our planet earth as a dream city or a dream planet? You need to take up the Challenge! to adopt more sustainable lifestyles -to reduce carbon emission to the minimum-and -to shift from exhausting non-renewable energy resources to the renewable energy resources as each one of us has a responsibility to live peacefully and not jeopardize the natural resources of our Planet Earth. I share and learn many good ideas that inspire me. “I must be the change I want to see in the world”.

Importantly, what is left now is a resolute effort by each one of us to ask a simple question to ourselves-WHAT IS THE ONE THING I CAN DO TODAY THAT WILL BENEFIT THE ENVIRONMENT?  Whatever the answer is, in your own capacity just DO IT. If each one of us ensures to do one act every day, it will sum up to SEVEN BILLION ACT DAILY.

I ask you to act now- to share the knowledge- to formulate knowledge into wisdom– to move forward together to and above all seize the inspiration from the Kenyan proverb  “The world was not given to you by your parents’; it was lent to you by your children.”

Simran Vedvyas

• UNEP -TUNZA Eco Generation Regional Ambassador Middle East
• Earth Charter Youth Group Country Activator- UAE
• Peace Ambassador Emerging Futures Youth Network
• Ambassador Connect for Diabetes- Raise your Hands for Africa and Middle East
• Spokesperson and Ambassador Cosmo Foundation (an NGO with Education Initiative) India and UAE
• Ambassador Cartoona Club and Student Member Emirates Environmental Group
• Environment Club Prefect, Best Buddies Prefect, Senior School Student- The Millennium School, Dubai- UAE,  and
• Member International Youth Council, Water Youth Movement and Communications Task Force Group
• UN CSD Major Group for Children and Youth